Tall Enough
by akaAuroraBorealis
Summary: John's a little insecure about his height.  Sherlock, not surprisingly, has no problem with it.  Romance ensues.


**Tall Enough**

It was going to be one hell of a lousy day, he could tell already. John had gotten a total of three hours sleep and so, not surprisingly, had slept through his alarm and was already five minutes late for surgery.

He'd woken to the sound of his flatmate, Sherlock, yelling his name, asking whether he'd seen the colander. John knew exactly where the colander was, having hidden it the day before to keep Sherlock from using it to drain fluids from thawing body parts and was, in fact, planning on purchasing a "body parts only" colander on his lunch hour.

But that whole conversation would have to wait until John found some clean trousers. He remembered that some freshly laundered jeans were in the basket sitting on the floor of his room. John rooted around in the dark, blinking his still bleary and sandy eyes until he found them. Hurriedly, he stepped in, pulling them up fast with one hand while fishing around for a clean shirt with the other. Still groggy, but frantic to get to work, John didn't realize his mistake until it was too late, and he felt the denim bind him like a giant cuff around his hips and thighs, causing him to lose his balance and fall, arse-over-teakettle, onto the floor.

Brilliant! He had grabbed Sherlock's skin-tight designer jeans by mistake. Now, totally annoyed, he thrashed about in the darkened room trying to loosen them, the long unfilled ends of the legs flapping against the floor. Just then, Sherlock appeared in the doorway, a sly grin playing across his face. John was mortified.

"Amused are we?" John asked looking up from the floor, trying to sound more indignant than embarrassed.

Sherlock's face softened a little. Then, looking down at his own shoes, as if he himself were embarrassed, he said, "I was just thinking how much better you looked in my coat."

John, now free of the ill-fitting jeans, relaxed and remembered the night before, how they had tracked down the car thieves, crept into their chop-shop, and escaped into the night with the incriminating laptop and two murderous thugs hot on their trail. The rain had started to fall as they ducked down an alleyway, effectively eluding their pursuers. Sherlock had shared his coat, large enough for two (since John was small) as the rain came down in sheets for a solid twenty minutes. They had been close and warm and so very quiet. This had not been the first time they had been trapped together in very tight quarters, and John would have felt a little awkward with anyone else, but Sherlock's tall steady presence always seemed to envelope him in an air of peace and happiness. Still, John never knew what to make of these rare intimacies. He only knew he wouldn't trade them for the world. But when Sherlock himself fondly alluded to that blissful time spent sharing his coat, John, sitting half-dressed on the floor of his room, wondered whether he dared hope for something more.

John stood, grabbed the right pair of jeans from the basket, and, as casually as he could, pulled them on. Not ready to face rejection, he decided to hide behind a fit of pique, anything to masque his old, long-buried insecurity.

"You don't have to pretend our difference in height isn't a source of humour. I've heard all the smart remarks Donovan and her lot make when they see the two of us, and they don't bother me."

Sherlock's face darkened at the mention of Sargent Sally Donovan. She regularly called him "freak" which Sherlock found to be highly unprofessional and mildly irritating. He usually met the insult with a quip about her tawdry dalliances with the married men of her police unit. But, now that he knew she'd said something to bother John, Sherlock decided he'd also start bringing up the seven other issues with which he knew could totally eviscerate her. Her extensive collection of "bodice ripper" romances staring Hans, the domineering wild animal trainer, would be first on the list.

John, now fully dressed, shoes in hand, started for the door. Sherlock did not move.

"I'm late, Sherlock." John looked at Sherlock's chest, hoping it would step aside.

"What's wrong with your height?" demanded Sherlock.

John sighed. Again they were standing close, close enough to bring back memories of last night: the smell of the woolen coat surrounding them, the feel of the cool rain trickling down his face and of droplets blinking from his eyelashes, the taste of cool, quenching wetness on his lips, all the while, Sherlock pressed against him, hovering over him, standing guard, tall and statuesque.

"Nothing's wrong with our heights, separately. I'm perfectly comfortable with who I am. It's only, when we're together I feel, you know, a little smaller, what with you being, you know…" John found he was not ready to use all the adjectives that sprang to his mind whenever he thought of Sherlock; words like uncannily graceful, breathtakingly beautiful, and, of course, stunningly tall.

Sherlock said nothing and stared down at John, making it all the harder for John to continue with this particular conversation. But that was not his intention. Sherlock was simply too busy to speak, too busy imagining how he would like to share his coat with John again, only this time without the distractions of rain, murderous criminals, and, most importantly, extraneous innerwear like shirts and trousers.

"Five inches, that's quite a gap. We're almost half a foot apart," said John, sounding a little exasperated as he was late for work yet had to do this simple math for a genius like Sherlock.

"Not by my measure," was Sherlock's reply, his gaze now taking a leisurely stroll down John's length as if to emphasize its significance.

"How's that?" asked John. He swallowed hard. He'd been caught off guard. I wasn't like that didn't happen just about every day with Sherlock. This time, however, the issue was decidedly personal, and John felt like he was standing on shifting sand.

Sherlock put both his hands on John's shoulders and, with none of the usual condescension, asked, "Isn't it obvious?"

His eyes danced over John's face, searching for a sign of recognition that wasn't there, not yet. Taking a small step closer, Sherlock's arms lowered and closed around John in an all-enveloping embrace that felt so warm, so intimate, so right.

Sherlock, his voice dropping in pitch and volume as he spoke, said, "Oh, John, you are just the height of my heart."

And from that position, John couldn't argue, for he knew this to be true.

_My favorite quote about height:_

_"How long should a man's legs be in proportion to his body?" and Lincoln replied: "I have not given the matter much consideration, but on first blush I should judge they ought to be long enough to reach from his body to the ground."_


End file.
